Fashion is one of THE most polluting industries on the planet..🙁

Here's some quick background info on what actually happens to a lot of the world's garbage. Spoiler alert - plastics are THE material that is hardest to recycle, they take hundreds of years to break down.. and clothing containing polyester... is basically a form of plastic. 

More on why fast-fashion in particular is so bad for our planet:

• 80 billion items are manufactured every year, but they are worn less and less before being discarded.
• The average American ends up sending 81 pounds of textiles to the landfill each year.
• A lot of these clothes use polyester fiber, which takes ~200+ years to biodegrade, and uses enormous amounts of fossil fuels to produce.
• Discarded polyester clothing is also one of the leading causes of "micro-plastics" ending up in our waterways and oceans..
• The fashion industry is the 8th-most polluting industry in the world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. (92 million tons of solid waste per year).

More about the cost of fast-fashion... 

In Chile's Atacama desert, discarded fast-fashion items from the US, Europe and Asia absolutely fill the landscape. It is horrifying to see. These garments will take over 200 years to disintegrate. Sometimes these textiles are simply BURNED.... my bad jokes about wanting to burn all stiletto heels in a dumpster fire aside, this creates air pollution and health problems for the people living nearby. This is why this matters so much. Our trash becomes someone else's chronic health problems. That's not fair. 

I know, all of the above is really depressing. Don't lose hope though! Solutions incoming if you keep reading....

Antidotes to the harm of fast-fashion...🥳

I do my small part to try to help reclaim textiles, but I want to make sure you don't miss these absolutely amazing ways that various people, artisans, designers, and companies (and in one case an entire town) are working to reduce consumer waste. 

An ENTIRE TOWN in Italy recycles a huge chunk of the world's textile waste. Around 15%. Check that out here:

In the USA, designer Daniel Silverstein started Zero Waste Daniel, and his work is AMAZING. So if my work is too heavy and you're in a warmer climate, PLEASE give his boutique a look. His website is right here: https://zerowastedaniel.com/ (opens up in a new window).

He is also on Instagram. 🥳

In London, the Junky Stylings line was started by Kerry Seager and Annika Sanders, who as teenagers wanted new clothes but didn't have money so started remaking clothes. They even alter and remake clothing people bring in. I love this so much. 😍

FABScrap is a fantastic nonprofit that works to reclaim and recycle textile waste...some fast-facts about them:

• Founded in 2016
• Partnered with over 500 fashion brands to rescue over 500,000 pounds of fabrics to keep them from going into the landfill. 
• FABscrap estimates that for every ONE pound we throw away as a consumer, a business threw away FORTY pounds to get us that product.
• 60% of the materials they receive, get recycled into new fabrics
• The remaining 40% gets shredded and becomes insulation, or carpet padding, or mattress stuffing. 
• Over 5,000 people volunteer in sorting the materials received, they volunteer in three-hour shifts and get 3 pounds of fabric for themselves in exchange for their service.

FABscrap is on Instagram! Follow them HERE. 

I am truly blessed to live within walking distance of Who Gives A Scrap, a local Colorado Springs business that rescues and reuses/resells art/textile supplies. They even have a classroom where guest teachers come in and teach classes in arts and fiber arts. They are amazing.. 12,406 square feet of AWESOME!! 😍 

WGAS Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/whogivesascrapcos
WGAS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whogivesascrap/
Website: https://whogivesascrapcolorado.com/

Other Earth-helping efforts outside fashion....

This is a really really long video below, but there are some amazing ways that companies are tackling waste. Cool things you'll see:

• ChopValue recycles hundreds of pounds of wooden chopsticks, turning them into tiles, furniture, costers, custom items, etc. More about them here:
  https://chopvalue.com/
• India produces tons of flower waste per day. One company, Phool, collects over 12 tons of flowers from local temples and transforms them into handmade incense sticks. 
• One company in Mexico, BioFase, has figured out how to turn Avocado pits into a type of bioplastic, which is made from plants, rather than petroleum.
• bioplastics take less fuel to produce
• they contain fewer toxic chemicals
• they decompose faster
• it still takes bioplastics ~1 year to break down - but that's faster than ~200 years.
• Algenesis Materials in California, has figured out how to make foam from algae rather than from plastic foam. 
• The resulting flip-flop (the world's most popular shoe) is 100% biodegradable and takes 3-6 months to break down in a compost pile.
• Ahuja Engineering Services: 1.3 billion tons of food gets thrown away every year. In Hyderabad, India, spoiled food is being used to generate biogas, which is then used to generate electricity. 

Wow, did you actually watch any of those all the way through to the end??😀 

Other resources/ideas/action steps:

• Check out my "Recyclize" board on Pinterest. That's right here. 
  
  
• The awesome "Recycle, Reuse and Repurpose" group on Facebook is right here. 
  
  
• Reasons to be Cheerful has a GREAT section full of interesting reads about climate solutions. Check that out right here. 
  
  
• If you garden like I do, this is my favorite compost tumbler and you can make a world of a difference by recycling your kitchen scraps along with garden waste.🤩
  
  
  

This is by no means an all-inclusive list, but I wanted to get this out into the world in hopes someone out there finds inspiration. Got a tip or something you'd like to see here? Send me an email: persephone@persephonelove.com.🥰